Are You There, Yami? It's Me, Ryou
by TheCartoonusMaximus
Summary: Ryou is sick and Bakura is gone... or is he? Pure, pointless fluff.


**Oh look... Fluff I wrote while I was sick. Horrible fluff that holds no purpose other than entertainment (and making me feel better).**

 **Let me know if you enjoyed it, I don't own the characters, and I also don't know anything about summoning demons.**

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 **"Are You There, Yami? It's Me, Ryou..."**

Ryou sighed unhappily as he shuffled about his nearly empty apartment. He wore nothing but a tank top, baby blue flannel pants, and a pair of fluffy bunny slippers. Dark circles hung under his eyes, his nose bright red and almost connected to the tissue box he carried at his side.

Ryou was sick, and he had been sick for a few days. Yugi and the others had come by earlier, bringing various assortments of ramen, soup, teas, and lozenges for his ailing throat, but then they all had to rush off to school. It was miserable though, sitting in his stuffy apartment all by himself with no one to talk to. He didn't even own a television set to stare at, and his brain wasn't quite up for reading.

The boy stumbled into the kitchen, boiling a cup of water and pouring a packet of soup powder into a mug, blinking his bleary eyes at the steam coming from the water.

He didn't feel good. In fact, he felt _awful_.

Abandoning his quest for soup, Ryou stumbled back to his room, fully intending to collapse onto his bed face-first. He tripped though, planting his face on the floor instead.

Groaning, he lifted his head, turning to see what he'd fallen over. His green eyes widened, a dim feeling of fear beginning to pound in his chest. It was his ouija board that had caused his fall, the planchette pointed at him almost accusatory.

Ryou shifted his body curiously, moving to sit up beside the peculiar board. He bought the ouija board many years ago, half-hoping to make some sort of contact with his deceased mother or his sister, but it hadn't delivered anything of that sort. Instead, a group of rogue spirits had been summoned to him, and they'd given the boy many strange messages, some of which were quite threatening. They only went away after the Spirit of the Ring announced that he'd had enough and sent them all packing.

The Spirit...

"Bakura?" Ryou whispered, his voice full of wonder. He knew that the ouija board was usually in the back of his closet, and he couldn't imagine how it had gotten to be in the middle of his floor. Not without help, at least...

"... Bakura? Are you...?"

But, that couldn't be. The Spirits of the Ring and the Puzzle were both gone, having past on to the Afterlife, so how could...

Ryou ran his fingers over the planchette absentmindedly, feeling the smooth edges. A familiar tingle shot up his arm, reminding him more of Bakura than anything else.

Hesitantly, he pushed the planchette across the board, moving it to the letter 'B,' then 'A' and 'K,' and continued to spell out the name he shared with his yami.

"Are you there, Yami?" he whispered, his lips quivering. "It's me... Ryou."

The planchette became warm under his touch, before moving on its on under his fingers. _"R-Y-O-U... H-I-K-A-R-I..."_

"YAMI!" Ryou cried out, partially in surprise and partially in relief. Tears began to fall down his cheeks, dripping onto the board, as his fingers clenched around the planchette.

He bit his lower lip as the lights in his apartment began to flicker, an otherworldly power filling the small abode. He wasn't afraid, though, even when the lights died out altogether for several seconds at a time; if anything, the darkness made him feel safe and secure as it blanketed him.

"The lights are threatening to die," he whispered, his eyes never moving from the board in front of him.

He could have sworn he heard a chuckle beside him as the planchette started moving again. _"I thought you didn't mind the dark?"_

"Oh, I don't. It..." he searched for the right words. "It reminds me of you."

There was no immediate answer, but that was alright. Ryou could easily imagine his former dark side sitting in front of him, glaring at him for saying something with any amount of sap in it.

" _Stop crying."_

"What...?" To his surprise, there were still tears trickling down his cheeks. "... I'm sorry."

More silence followed. Realizing that, using the ouija board, he could simply say his part of the conversation aloud while the Spirit had to spell his side out on the board, Ryou stood up from the floor and walked over to his closet, rummaging about in the dim light, searching for something.

The planchette moved violently and urgently across the board, acting as if it had a mind of its own and was trying desperately to get Ryou's attention again.

"I'm looking for something," he muttered. "I have some candles in here somewhere, and some chalk... Do you think... Do you think I could summon you?"

The lights flickered back on mysteriously, allowing him to see what he was looking for, the spirit board now spelling things out wildly.

" _Don't shape your circle like a pentacle. Not a demon summoning like in the books. … Shape it like the Ring."_

Ryou nodded, arranging his special candles on the floor, drawing a chalk image of the Ring on the wooden panels. "A circle... and five pendants... a candle in the middle for the Eye of Horus."

He lit the candles, one at a time, whispering Bakura's name over and over again under his breath, mixing it in with his favorite summoning chant. A whisper for every candle, a name for every flame that lit beneath his fingers. He was bone-tired, but this... this was too important to wait until he felt better.

"Bakura..." He whispered, coming to the last candles. "Bakura... _Bakura_... BAKURA!"

As he spoke the last one, he watched in awe as the flames of the candles all flickered and danced, rising up to join one another in the center, taking on the form of a door. The 'door' flew open, the flames scattering into a thousands ashes and finally dying with a sputter. A figure now stood in the center of redesigned summoning circle, staring down at his hands in surprise.

Ryou stared up at the strange figure that now stood above him, looking down towards where the Japanese boy was sitting on the floor; wild purple eyes stared out at him from behind shaggy gray hair, a scar stretching over the cheek beneath one of them, the skin a dark tan and bedecked with jewels.

"B-Bakura?"

The Egyptian that was before him smiled oddly gently, leaning down and kneeling in front of Ryou. Dark fingers reached out to brush unruly bangs from Ryou's face, then moved down to trace bright red cheeks and a bright red nose.

Frowning, Bakura growled at him. "Why the hell were you talking to me, you idiot?! You should have just said you were sick, not expended all that damn energy to summon me! What the hell's wrong with you?!"

Ryou only smiled, leaning forward and pressing his face to the Egyptian's shoulder. "I missed you too, Bakura."

The Spirit grunted, moving to lift the boy up and his arms and carrying him to the bed. "Yeah, well, don't get too used to that feeling. I'm not going to make you waste more energy by sending me back to the Afterlife. Ra, how stupid can you be?"

Bakura grumbled and swore under his breath as he covered Ryou with blankets, making sure the teenager was comfortable and warm, soon bringing and feeding him soup upon learning that the boy hadn't had anything to eat yet today. He cursed the names of all the gods he knew as he took Ryou's temperature and brought him a box of Kleenex.

And Ryou simply smiled in amusement through it all, hearing the unspoken words...

" _I missed you, Ryou."_

The End


End file.
